Health spending would rise much more slowly under a Tory government than it has under Labour, the Conservatives have announced for the first time. Andrew Lansley, the shadow health secretary, said that the Tories would cut the rate at which NHS spending was increasing.

Schools are struggling to cope with increasing numbers of children raised in Dickens-style poverty, according to a teachers’ leader. Some pupils from the poorest areas arrive at school without toilet training, unable to dress themselves or use a knife and fork, it was claimed.

Lesley Ward, president of the 160,000-strong Association of Teachers and Lecturers, warned that many children were also being relied upon to raise younger brothers and sisters and lacked stable father figures in the home.

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